This is from last week! Enjoy!

So I haven’t written in a long time, and so much has gone on. I have one more week on the farm and then I leave for a week on the coast and a three day safari (there is travel time in between and a few nights in Nairobi). I am really excited. However, it is bittersweet. I will be sad to leave all of the people that I have lived with for the past month and a half. Sadly, I know that I will not see them much or ever again. It is amazing how you can form friendships so quickly. So as excited as I am that my trip home is nearer, I am not looking forward to leaving Africa behind.
I have experienced so much here, yet I feel as though I could do so much more. Some of the volunteer opportunities are not short term investments. You literally are just experiencing it. If you really want to make a difference you must put in a lot of time and energy. I went to hang out with the ‘street boys’ on Saturday. So heartbreaking. Hopeless almost. Street boys are orphans or runaways who live on the streets. They beg for money and food. They use the money they get to buy glue to huff. They are totally addicted. It is so normal for the citizens to see these boys running the streets, high on glue that is overlooked or ignored. I’m not saying that people don’t care, because I don’t think that, but it is how it is. Churches will feed them, but they don’t do anything to help their situation. If anything, just feeding them is only enabling them. With free food they can use the money they get from begging to buy glue. There are some organizations that work towards getting the kids off the streets. One of the volunteers met a man named Peter who is a former street boy himself. He now works towards building relationships with the boys in hopes of improving their lives. So, with Peter, most of us on the farm spent two Saturdays with the street kids.
We went to a local park and played games with them (I just chatted with them and took pictures). Last week all of the kids were taken to a restaurant and bought lunch. I guess that went a lot more smoothly. I did not go to lunch last week. This week peanut butter and jelly sandwiches were made and passed out to the boys. Before this point we had a nice time. There was a soccer game going on and the rest of us were just hanging out. Granted there was some drama. Think about sixty boys ages six to twenty, high on glue, with very few social skills. You are going to have some chaos. The bigger ones pick on the little ones. The stoned ones acted erratically. They hit each other, fought, stole each others’ glue, sobbed. They also tried to dip into the purses of some of the volunteers. They did, however, show a little respect. All taking advantage aside, they know we want to help, and they like our company. If we reprimanded them, they would listen. Some of the volunteers would try to take their glue from them. I tried a more subtle approach by just acknowledging that they had it, because if you took it without them agreeing they would become violent. One girl snatched a bottle and a boy attacked her. He was one of the most addicted. He turned down food because he would not give up his glue. This was one of the rules.
Once the it was time to pass out the food all hell broke loose. We, as teachers, wanted to come up with a way to efficiently and calmly pass out the food. Peter had a way he wanted to do it. Yeah, it didn’t work. The kids started frantically crowding around, they were stealing each other’s food, fighting, sobbing. It was insane. It was too crazy for me. Once it hit a certain point, I had to back out. As I sat on the outside of the mania looking in I just became so overwhelmed. It was one of the most pitiful scenes I have ever seen in real life. I was choking back tears. The desperation and sadness was too much to handle. It was out of control, and I felt helpless. So, I went shopping…
Megan, a teacher from IU, promised Itabu, one the street boys that she would buy him a new outfit. They had managed to sneak off during the chaos, so I joined them. Itabu is a very charming hustler. Everyone remembers him. He speaks good English, has a great smile, and remembers everything. After we took him and Megan bought him shorts, a shirt, and shoes we took him to lunch with the whole group. We had a chance to talk to him. Come to find out, there has been numerous efforts to help Itabu. So there is this attitude that he shouldn’t be helped anymore. Supposedly he runs away every time someone tries to take him in. Well, I talked to Itabu. The poor little thing is only eleven. He comes from Uganda where his father is dead and his mother beat him. She said she did not want him anymore, so he ran here to Bungoma, Kenya. Some previous volunteers here brought him to the farm. They then decided to take him to a boy’s school for street kids in Uganda. Once Itabu heard ‘Uganda’, he thought they were taking him home to his mom who beat him. So he runs away. Makes sense to me. The next attempt consisted of taking him to a boy’s school in a city just a few hours away. He says they beat him there. So he ran away.
This young child is damaged. His mother beat the crap out of him. He is terrified of being beat up, so he runs away out of fear. He says he wants to go to school. Once again, I was crying behind my sunglasses. He is so young, but his eyes look like an old man, for he has seen way too much in his short amount of years.
This is one of the efforts that needs so much more time and energy. Peter has devoted his life to helping these kids, but it is hard for him to get funding. He can not start an organization without money. A lot of us will try to do our best to help once we leave here, but I would love to spend more time with kids like Itabu. Even though it is emotionally strenuous you can’t help but to notice that these kids need affection and someone to care about them. You should have seen how happy Itabu was with some new clothes and a Coca-Cola.
On another note… There was this little stray dog that showed up at the farm. One day I was at the well pumping water and noticed a dog that looked dead. It was so skinny you could see every bone, and his coat was thin with sores peaking through. I was freaked out until I saw it move. Then I was even more freaked out that it could actually be alive looking like that. I asked around and no one knew much or seemed to care. Stallone, who lives here, has two other puppies so he fed the dog with them a few times. One of my main concerns is the way people treat pets here. They get hit, kicked, and objects thrown at them. I wasn’t sure what they would do with a little thing like this. Well, because I am an animal lover, and the sweet little thing melted my heart I took action. I started to feed him peanut butter and bread every day. That is where he got his name, Butter. The more I paid attention to him and got others to do the same, the more attention he gets from everyone. Megan and I gave him a bath on Friday. The amount of dirt and bugs that came off of this little five pound dog is disturbing. The stress of the bath totally exhausted the little guy. He went in to some sort of shivering, shock-like sleep. For a minute we thought maybe we gave him a heart attack. We wrapped him in a towel and left him to sleep in the sun for a few hours. When he woke up he was so happy.
He follows me around everywhere. He comes and sits outside of my hut. The other night I went to the bathroom, and I heard a little whimper outside. Butter was sitting by the door crying for me. It breaks my heart that he is attached to me and I’m leaving in a week. There is a fourteen year old boy here with his parents, and he loves Butter. He feeds him and shows him love. Today Matthew, the boy, bought de-wormer for him and the other puppies. His family is going to be here for a while, so I think Butter is in good hands.
Tomorrow I am going on a short trip to a nearby waterfall. This last week here I plan on going on some short day trips and going with some of the volunteers to observe the AIDS classes. Then it is purely pleasure. I get to chill on the beach for a week and then go on a safari.